A Lady Unrivaled

by Roseanna M. White

  “There is no point in dwelling on this, Cayton. You made mistakes. You admitted them, you repented of them, you have embraced the redemption from them that the Lord offers. It’s time to forgive yourself.”

  A task he had yet to figure out how to do. “That’s why I came, actually.” Though he edged toward the door, ready to dash back down the stairs if his cousin thought his suggestion foolish. “I thought perhaps . . . I appreciated our talk the other day—when we were discussing that chapter in Ephesians. I thought, perhaps, we could . . . make a habit of it?”

  Stafford straightened, all shadow leaving his eyes, brightening them. “I was going to offer—I didn’t know if you’d be interested. We could meet here in the mornings. You can bring Addie. She and Bing can play in the nursery.”

  A bit of the tension in Cayton’s shoulders eased as he nodded. “I’d like that. Starting tomorrow?”

  His cousin smiled. “Tomorrow it is. This is a good step, Cay.”

  He certainly hoped so—he was due for a good step. With a nod and a wave, he turned and headed back down the stairs, a prayer thumping along with every footfall.

  A prayer that, this time, was answered positively when he made it all the way outside without running into the duchess and her guest again. Not that it stopped his mind from conjuring up Lady Ella’s face.

  Just an appreciation of beauty and good humor—that was all. Of the way the light caught her hair and set it ablaze. The line of her shoulder.

  It had nothing at all to do with the way his throat had closed off when he’d looked down at her and realized . . . well, that she was real.

  Troubadour snorted a greeting as he neared, and he swung up into the saddle after giving his horse an obligatory pat. “Let’s go home, boy.”

  It still felt odd to trot away from the familiar stones of Ralin Castle to the nearby house he had shared so briefly with Adelaide. In all his memory, the duke’s castle had been more home to him than his own in Yorkshire. After his father died when he was small, he and his mother had spent most of the year at Ralin, with Grandfather. He had terrorized the ducks down at the pond as a boy. Learned how to jump a horse in that paddock to the west. Had stolen his first kiss from the stable master’s daughter—and gotten his first slap for his fourteen-year-old bravery.

  He pointed Troubadour down the drive and didn’t look back at the beloved towers, the stone walls. Not until he was eight had he realized that, though he was the older of them, his cousin would inherit the duchy, not he. That Ralin Castle would never be his, because he’d been born to the duke’s daughter instead of one of his sons.

  If he were being honest—which he was trying to be these days—he would admit that it had caused him no little jealousy as he grew up. That was, perhaps, why he and Stafford had never much gotten along as young men.

  But losing Grandfather had forced them to put all that aside. And seeing the mess the estates had been in, how much work his cousin had put into setting it to rights . . . it was good Stafford was the one in charge of it all and not Cayton. He’d managed his own, much smaller, estate poorly enough.

  It took only a few minutes to canter the mile to the picturesque manor house set against the wood just before the village. As a boy, he had never spared more than a passing glance at Anlic Manor. Though the honeyed-stone house had been standing every bit as long as Ralin Castle, the Rosten family had only purchased it a generation ago, with the profits they made in the mills.

  He owned those now, too, as well as the fifteen-acre estate that Adelaide had loved so well. And which he knew Addie would love every bit as much. Like her mother, she would grow up dipping her toes in the little stone fish pool, escaping her nurse to frolic in the grass that grew tall and waving by the small lake. It wasn’t as large as Azerly Hall, their home in Yorkshire, but it was better situated. Warmer. And somehow when he was here, he remembered Adelaide as she would want him to—he saw her smiling, happy. At Azerly she had never been so well.

  “Back already, milord?”

  He smiled at the groom who emerged from the small stable to take his horse. “Must be back before the lady awakens, you know, Gregory.”

  The groom, with his grey hair and ample wrinkles, had been at Anlic some forty years. He grinned. “The nursery window’s open, but we haven’t heard a peep from the little lady. You’ve time yet, I’d think.”

  He wouldn’t complain about that either. The day was always more pleasant when Addie enjoyed a nice nap. “I’m sure I shall find a way to fill it.” After dismounting, he handed the reins to the man.

  Gregory nodded. “Mrs. Higgins would like a word with you, I believe.”

  “Ah.” His housekeeper here spoke with him more often than the one at Azerly did, but he had a good idea of what she would want to talk with him about today. “How is Felicity?”

  The groom just shook his head, worry deepening the lines that smiles had wrought. “Poorly, so far as I can tell. Don’t know how much longer she’ll be able to work, milord.”

  He and Mrs. Higgins had already lightened her niece’s duties several times, but if Felicity was still overtaxed . . . “We’ll see she’s cared for, Gregory. Even when she cannot work any longer.”

  “She won’t take charity—you know she won’t. She’ll work for her keep or she’ll leave.”

  But she couldn’t leave—that was what the man’s eyes said when his lips stopped. She had no other family left, no home to go to. And if the babe she carried sapped her strength here, it would sap it all the more in another position.

  He nodded and headed for the house. “We’ll find something that she can manage.”

  Mrs. Higgins must have heard that last bit, for the aging housekeeper met him at the door with a frazzled sigh. “I don’t know what else to give her, my lord. She is already on the lightest tasks. And I swore to you when you agreed to keep her on that I would show no favoritism, despite she’s my niece, but—”

  “Hush, Mrs. Higgins.” He smiled and motioned that she should lead the way into the rear entrance. “And I assured you that favoritism is not ill-placed in this situation. Felicity was Adelaide’s longest, truest friend.”

  They had been companions as children, the housekeeper’s niece brought in specifically for that purpose, given Adelaide’s infirmity. She had never made friends among society. Felicity had become her lady’s maid once they were old enough—really, demoting her to a mere housemaid after Adelaide’s passing was an insult, but she’d insisted on working for her keep. “My wife made me promise to see to her care, and I intend to do just that. She will always have a home here. Always.” Even if some scamp had married her just long enough to get her in a family way and then run off. It was hardly her fault.

  Mrs. Higgins pressed a hand to her forehead. “I suppose I can put her to polishing the silver again.”

  He smiled and patted her shoulder—something his housekeeper in Yorkshire would never have invited nor tolerated, but they moved at a different pace here. And the Rostens had never insisted on the formality that his parents had.

  “There now, Mrs. Higgins, I knew you would think of something. And when the silver has been polished, I have long been thinking that we should continue the late Mr. Rosten’s work cataloguing the books in his library. Perhaps she could do that . . . with young Ronald to fetch and replace the books for her while she sits at the table?”

  The woman’s eyes lit. “Oh, she would enjoy that. Thank you, my lord.”

  “Certainly.” Satisfied that such a huge task would keep young Felicity busy long after the babe came, he nodded his farewell and slipped up the back stairs. A peek into the nursery showed him that Addie still slept peacefully while her nurse sat by her crib with knitting in hand, so he continued on his way, up to the garret with its generous windows and slanted, dark-beamed ceilings.

  He had known the moment Adelaide showed him this room that he must fill it with color and paper and canvas. Its size was perfect, its lighting ideal. Here he had put his wide, simple de
sk where he sketched. His easel remained always by the window, where morning light could spill just so onto the canvas. The smell of oils lingered always, along with the potent bite of turpentine.

  Heaven must smell like this.

  He jammed his riding gloves into his pocket but decided that changing into fresh clothes could wait. Another task called, and too loudly to be ignored. He headed straight for the cabinet he had positioned under the slanted eaves and opened the topmost drawer, drawing out the sketch pad he had begun after Adelaide’s death last year, when everything had seemed so bleak and hopeless. When the world had felt as though it were collapsing overtop him.

  Stafford had told him to pray. To ask God to reveal himself.

  So he had prayed. He had prayed that God would do just that, and that He would show him some slip of light to cling to. That He would prove there was hope left in the world.

  He had drawn countless things. Flower gardens in spring, sunshine bursting through clouds. Happy children, doting old women with well-earned lines in their faces. Then he had cast about for laughter. For smiles.

  He flipped past those first drawings to one in the middle and stared down at the face of Lady Ella Myerston. He hadn’t known who he was drawing—he had thought her just an ideal, like so many other figures he had sketched from nothing more than imagination. But there she was. That graceful line of her shoulder. The eyes that sparkled with hope, with a light he had given up on.

  He had done a handful of sketches, as was his usual way—seeing her from different angles, different expressions on her face . . . but all of them variations on a smile, a grin. Always happy. Laughing.

  Just as she had been when she came plowing out the library door and straight into his arms.

  He put that book aside and reached back into the drawer, for the stack of thicker stock he had used with his pastels. In the one of these he’d done, he had tried to capture her coloring.

  But his imagination had failed him, it seemed. Her hair was much richer a shade than he had given it credit for being. He had erred on the side of orange, but that wasn’t right at all.

  Drawing out the box of pastels, he reached for the scarlet and got down to business. He worked steadily, correcting his earlier work until his imaginary Laughing Lady became a truer representation of Lady Ella.

  Funny though . . . The more accurate he made the representation, the more vibrant her smiles and laughter seemed.

  He had just pulled out a fresh canvas and put the first stroke of a sketch upon it when a halfhearted cry from the floor below brought him to a halt. Grabbing a rag to wipe off any remaining color from his fingers, he abandoned the canvas and headed downstairs. Even the idea for a new painting couldn’t compare to being the one to reach into his daughter’s crib and pick her up as she awoke.

  Tabby still sat with her yarn and needles, though she looked ready to set it aside. “I thought you would be down, milord. Shall I go and ring for her luncheon while you have her?” At Azerly Hall, she would have under-nurses to do such menial tasks for her—here at Anlic, they kept only a skeleton staff.

  “Yes, go ahead.” For a moment, he just stood there and looked down at the little girl who blinked up at him, stretched her chubby little arms, and grinned. She tied his heart into knots with that grin. He returned it and stretched his arms into the crib. “Are you ready to get up, my sweet girl?”

  She answered with the one word she’d managed thus far. “Da! Dadada.”

  Answer enough for him. He scooped her up, cradled her against him, breathed in the scent of talcum powder and lavender as she snuggled in and closed her eyes again. The sleepiness wouldn’t linger long, he knew, but he would enjoy it while it lasted. In another moment she would want down to crawl about the room and pull herself up on anything she could.

  For now, he took the chair Tabby had vacated, held his daughter close, and shut his eyes. When he had prayed for proof of hope, God had opened his eyes to this too. To these quiet moments that meant the world.

  If only the rest of the world would forget about him and let him enjoy it. But the letter in his pocket proved they wouldn’t.

  He should have shown it to Stafford while he was there, but . . . tomorrow would be soon enough for that.

  Three

  PARIS, FRANCE

  Kira Belova tucked her hand into the crook of Andrei’s elbow, made sure her prettiest smile was in place, and prayed her knee didn’t give out. “Oui, Andrei. You know I would love to.”

  Her patron smiled and patted her hand. “I knew you would, mon amour. Come. I have hired a car to drive us. You like the automobiles, n’est pas?”

  She hated them—the terrible vibration of the engine, the way they bounced over every cobblestone in Paris—but he liked them, so she had claimed bliss when he’d taken her for a drive last week. “Of course I do, moy durugoy.” The Russian tripped off her tongue, as it so seldom had the opportunity to do in recent days.

  She missed Sergei, barking orders at her in a mix of French and Russian. She missed the other ballerinas, muttering and cursing as they stretched their bodies to the limits. She missed the feel of a cold barre under her fingertips, the stretch and strain of muscles. The applause as she transformed arms and legs and back into poetry and music before a crowd of adoring theatergoers enthralled by all things Russian.

  Her knee ached, reminding her to keep her smile bright. “Where are we going today?”

  Andrei’s gaze was on the sleek metal contraption he had hired—this one a gleaming green, where the last had been black. He was still trying to decide what model to buy, he had said, and so was testing out a few.

  She would never dare say that they all made her wish for her babushka’s stubborn old farm mule. If ever she said such a thing, Andrei would shake her off him like dust, and then where would she be?

  She had begged and pleaded with her family for years to send her to St. Petersburg to study ballet at the Imperial School. She had pulled every possible string and called in more favors than she was owed to get an audience with Sergei Diaghilev after his Ballet Russe had debuted to such critical acclaim. She had given up everything—everything—to move to Paris and dance. She wouldn’t go back. She wouldn’t. Her knee would heal, Sergei would take her back into the corps, and though she might not immediately return to the prima ballerina role, she could earn it back. She could. She would. She must.

  “La Musée National des arts asiatiques Guimet.” Andrei helped her into the car and closed the door behind her. This car had a roof, and he paused for a moment in that way she hated, just looking at her, framed by the metal.

  Just another statue for his entryway. Another painting for his wall. That was all she felt like when he looked at her like that—a piece of art in his collection, bought and paid for because she was the prettiest dancer in the ballet. The same reason he carted her around Paris in the finest silks money could buy—just showing all his friends and competitors that he could have the best.

  He leaned in, pressed a kiss to her lips, and then moved around the idling car, humming.

  She took the moment’s respite to draw in a deep breath and push it out, pushing all bitter thoughts out with it. To rub at her knee while he wouldn’t notice. She must purge herself of these terrible thoughts. She had worked hard to get his attention—he, the wealthiest Russian in all of Europe, the man every ballerina and actress and singer had vied to win. She had flirted and smiled and played coy, she had darted toward and away again for a solid year. And oh, the victory when he had finally made her the offer all the others had hated her for.

  A house of her own, filled with servants. She could open the windows there and smell the fresh baguettes baking. She could ring a bell and have her café au lait delivered to her boudoir. She had commissioned a wardrobe to put any princess to shame, had her dark hair regularly styled by a professional coiffeuse. He took her to the nicest restaurants, draped her neck with jewels, introduced her to dignitaries and royalty and other wealthy merchants—an
d all she had to do was keep him happy.

  She tried not to think of what Babushka would say. The sorrow that would fill her eyes at knowing Kira had freely chosen what she had striven all her life to escape.

  Sliding into the driver’s seat, Andrei flashed her a smile full of even white teeth. He was a handsome man, if fifteen years her senior. Kind, most of the time. Generous, when it suited him. And though he had left his previous mistress in so poor a state that no one else dared speak to her, Kira wouldn’t let that happen to her. She would make sure that, if they parted ways, it would be amicably. So that she could simply crook a finger at one of those princes or dukes and keep the lifestyle she loved. Not find herself in a gutter, penniless and scarred—the price of betraying Andrei Varennikov.

  No, Kira wasn’t stupid enough to betray him. “I don’t believe I’ve been to this museum. From its name, I assume it specializes in Asian pieces?”

  There was nothing Andrei liked more than talking of art, of antiquities, of all the fine things he surrounded himself with. “Oui. They have recently acquired a display from Tibet.”

  Tibet. Kira scoured the map in her mind, trying to place the name. Before Andrei, her knowledge of geography had been poor indeed, but she quickly determined that if she wanted his attention, she must be able to speak intelligently. Finally, she smiled and snuggled close to his side. “I have read that the monasteries in the mountains are breathtaking.”

  “Mm. They have nothing on our Optina, but they are beautiful. I saw the display last week with Jacques Bacot, who collected it all, and it was quite intriguing. But we are not going through the main display today, ma belle.”

  “Non?”

  “No. Monsieur Guimet is trying to sell me some of the pieces in his storage room.”

  She made an impressed noise, knowing how he loved seeing what the public couldn’t. Just last month, right before her injury, he had dragged her through the basement of the Louvre for an endless four hours.